


Because That's What I Do

by DarkTwin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Backstory, Blowjobs, Bondage, Bottom Sherlock, Consent Issues, Control, Dom Mycroft, Domination, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Dysfunctional Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fingerfucking, First Time, Hand Jobs, Holmes Brothers, Incest, Light Bondage, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mindfuck, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Mycroft is a manipulative bastard, No happy endings, Oral Sex, Power Dynamics, References to Prostitution, References to sexual violence, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Toys, Sibling Incest, Smut, Somnophilia, Sub Sherlock, Submission, Underage Sex, d/s dynamics, holmescest, references to drug abuse, to say the least, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:44:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkTwin/pseuds/DarkTwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>JOHN: Listen, has he ever had any kind of girlfriend, boyfriend, a relationship, ever?<br/>MRS HUDSON: I don’t know.<br/>JOHN: How can we not know?<br/>(A Scandal in Belgravia)</i>
</p><p>Here's how, John.</p><p>When Sherlock was fifteen, Mycroft took the matter into his own hands.<br/>When Sherlock was twenty, he rebelled.<br/>When Sherlock was twenty-five, he tried to run.<br/>When Sherlock turned thirty, it was over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is Holmescest, starting when Sherlock is fifteen, so all the warnings apply - underage, dubious consent due to young age and inexperience, sibling incest, dubious morality and general dysfunctionality in every way. Not the stuff happy endings are made of. Trigger warning for child abuse, because technically, that's what it is. 
> 
> Feedback is endlessly appreciated. :)

When Sherlock was fifteen, Mycroft decided to take the matter into his own hands.

He should have done it long before this, he thought as he watched his younger brother covertly in church on Christmas Eve. He should have done it when his brother's voice hadn't broken yet. When he was still more than half a head shorter than Mycroft, and hadn't yet started catching up at the rapid pace he was setting now. When his body was still that of a scrawny child, and hadn't started to fill out yet, shoulders broadening in the unmistakeable transition from boy to man.

It would have been doubly illegal, but it would have made things so much easier. The boy would have been clay in his older brother's hands, ready and happy to follow Mycroft's lead as he had always been in everything else. Now that Sherlock had become aware of the issue on his own, it would be a different matter altogether. It would require careful planning, and once they had started, there would be no turning back, no dismissing it as a game or a silly joke. But there was no help for it.

Mycroft feared, truly feared, that it might be too late already. He reproached himself that he had been so deluded as to hope, for a time, that the matter would resolve itself without any intervention at all. Asexuality was a rare condition, but not unheard of, and for a while, it had been difficult to tell whether his little brother was just a late bloomer or truly not interested at all. But that period of doubt was over now – had probably been over for a while, while Mycroft had his back turned - and it was high time to act.

Mycroft shot his brother another secret look, standing shoulder to shoulder with him in the ancient little village church just across the road from their parents' house. Both Mycroft and Sherlock were home for the holidays, Sherlock from a school which he hated, and Mycroft from London which he loved. He had just said goodbye to a career in Academia and moved to the capital to make a place for himself among the high and mighty of the country. And now both brothers had accompanied their parents to church on Christmas Eve, at their mother's insistence.

“What's the point?” Mycroft had asked his mother gravely at the tender age of almost eight. “Nobody there has any answers either, do they?”

At which she, the mathematician who had forgone the Fields Medal for the sake of bringing up two children even more unusually gifted than herself, had smiled indulgently, and said, “At least the people at church are asking the same questions, Mikey. It's always good not to be alone.”

She had been right on all counts, of course. It _was_ good not to be alone, as she had already proved to her older son a year before, by giving him a little brother. And of course, she also knew what was expected of the members of the tight-knit village community she and her husband were a proud part of. Mycroft acknowledged that. He'd always had a shrewd sense of the rules that society operated on, and he appreciated the stabilising function they had in the lives of lesser mortals, his parents included.

So Mycroft, twenty-two years old now, fully grown and already heavier than he himself liked, was in church for Christmas, his lips moving dutifully, forming words whose deluded simplicity would have appalled him if he'd said them out loud. But his eyes and his thoughts were on his brother next to him. He knew the reason why Sherlock wasn't singing along with the rest of the congregation either, although the carol was one he’d always particularly loved. It wasn't that he was still uncomfortable using his new deep voice in public, as everybody else probably thought. The reason was something else entirely, and Mycroft did not like it one bit.

The reason was that Sherlock was distracted. He was doing it fairly unobtrusively, but he kept stealing glances at the pair who were stationed to the left of the altar, seen in profile by the congregation. They were the vicar's daughter Emma, sweet seventeen and what ordinary people liked to call a perfect English Rose, playing along on her flute; and the frankly strapping blond young man who was her music teacher, seated in the organist's place. And every time he looked at them, almost imperceptibly the hands at Sherlock's sides curled into fists.

They reached the triumphant final chord of the last verse. Emma lowered her flute, her round cheeks flushed and her eyes shining with the warmth and the festive spirit of the packed, candle-lit church. And then she turned to the young man at the organ, and exchanged a smile with him, so openly radiant that it set the little old ladies in the front pew simpering approvingly in unison. Mycroft sensed more than felt the small movement at his side. His little brother's jaw had tightened so much that Mycroft thought he could hear the grinding of his teeth.

Of course, Mycroft had always known that it would come to that, one day. There was no stopping a child from growing up physically, no matter how much of a toddler they might remain emotionally - temper tantrums, long sulks behind locked doors and a remarkable disregard for anyone else's wishes, desires and needs included.

And Mycroft had always known that it would hurt to see it happen to Sherlock, to find his little brother more interested in a pretty face than in a good book one day, more apt to spend his time running his dextrous fingers over someone else's skin than across the strings of his violin.

And the long-term consequences would be disastrous, to say the least. Regression to the mean was a scientific fact and thus the inescapable fate of anyone who participated in the reproduction of the human race. No amount of mental capacity or mental acuity would save his little brother from producing children significantly less capable and less acute than himself, once he'd start acting on his biological impulses. And then – this was no less a biological impulse – he would do what their own mother had done, give up his own life and his prospects and his opportunities forever for their sake, who wouldn't deserve one jot of it. Such a sad, sad waste.

Well, that particular danger - producing children - at least seemed to be taken care of now, because what Mycroft was witnessing now was _not_ about the girl. She got only resentment; it was the young man at the organ who got half resentment and half desperate longing, so intense that Mycroft thought the musician would be able to _feel_ it, if he'd only pay attention.

But even though there had always been a strong statistical likelihood that Sherlock would be wired that way, just like his older brother, it was a mixed blessing.

The horrifying mental images of Sherlock fathering children one day, and then putting everything else second, disappeared that night, never to return and haunt Mycroft again. But the idea of the boy giving himself to another man just meant the same in the end - that he'd eventually build his life on and around someone else, someone who would almost certainly be unworthy of that honour. But give himself he would, the idiot, body, mind and soul. Mycroft knew his brother, knew his impulsiveness, his poor self-control when emotionally distressed, his hunger for being praised and loved. It would not take much, it really would not, for another man to realise how vulnerable that made Sherlock, and to take advantage of that vulnerability. Sherlock would have nothing to counter that with, no defences, no armour. Unless...

That was the point where Mycroft had always stopped himself, so far. Not because it was illegal, due to both Sherlock's age and their blood relationship. Not because society shrank from anything of the sort with horror and disgust. Mycroft found social norms tedious at best when applied to the personal, invisible part of his life. And laws only mattered as long as you weren't the one making them, which he already knew he would eventually be. He had hesitated because his data had been insufficient. Girls, boys, or no one at all had been equally likely, and would each have required a very different approach. But now that he had his answer, it would be criminally negligent to wait any longer.

Mycroft made his decision, and then spent the rest of the Christmas service willing away the very physical manifestation of the fact that what he was about to do was his duty, but would also undeniably be his pleasure.

\+ + +

Just as Mycroft had anticipated, he caught his brother in the act that night. Their rooms adjoined, and in the silence of the night, sound carried. It was just after midnight when Mycroft sat up in bed, listening intently for the little noises, like sobs, coming from next door. They stopped for a moment, but when he sat silently and unmoving for a while, they resumed. Mycroft slid out of bed, slipped on his dressing gown, and went on tiptoe to the door, then out into the corridor. There was no way Sherlock wouldn't hear him enter his room, so Mycroft’s only chance lay in swift action rather than in stealth.

He was in the room and by his brother's bedside in less than ten seconds. It had been enough time for Sherlock to stop what he'd been doing, but not enough time to rid himself of the evidence, of course. He froze when he heard his brother enter, curled up on his side with his back to the room and his face to the wall. But after a moment, he acknowledged that there was no point in playing dead. He turned over.

“What are you doing?” Sherlock's voice was low, but he didn't whisper, and yet again, Mycroft was taken aback at how deep it was now.

“I might ask the same of you,” he answered quietly, and sat down uninvited on the edge of the mattress. “What are _you_ doing?”

The question was entirely rhetorical, of course. The duvet Sherlock had pulled up to his shoulders was too thick to show his body in more than very vague outline, but the sheen of sweat on the boy's brow, glistening in the dim light, and his flushed cheeks and slightly laboured breathing told the story as clearly as if Mycroft had pulled the covers away.

So that’s what he did.

He had surprise on his side, and the grab that Sherlock made for the duvet came far too late. He made it one-handed, too, which put him even more at a disadvantage. Mycroft caught his brother’s frantic hand, and pressed it down on the mattress, next to Sherlock's head. He held it there, their fingers intertwining. The tension in his brother's body made the boy quiver, all his reflexes telling him to resist, to pull away. That, of course, would be the first thing he'd have to unlearn.

Mycroft pushed the duvet to the floor with his elbow, then glanced at where Sherlock’s other hand was. A corner of Mycroft's mouth curled at what he saw. His brother had not bothered – or maybe he'd been too engrossed in what he'd been doing – to pull his pyjama bottoms back up, and the faint light in the room was caught and reflected by his pale skin.

“Go away,” Sherlock said, his eyes narrowed, in a creditable attempt at preserving his dignity. Something else he would have to unlearn soon.

“Oh, never mind me,” Mycroft whispered back. “Keep going. I want to watch what you’re doing.”

“Why?” It was more enquiry than alarm.

“Because that's what I do, little brother, and what I'll always do.” Mycroft replied smoothly. He tightened his fingers around Sherlock’s on the mattress. “And you’re too beautiful not to, you know.” He ran his free hand idly through Sherlock's unruly hair. His brother jerked his head away, and made a little noise of pain when Mycroft's fingers caught in the sweaty tangles.

“Keep still, don't hurt yourself,” Mycroft muttered. “That's what this is all about, don't you see? Because that will happen, Sherlock. People will hurt you, if you let them.”

He let his hand ghost over his brother’s face, the pads of his thumb tracing the boy’s strong, straight eyebrows and the vertical crease between them, then down the bridge of his nose, and along his high cheekbones. This time, Sherlock held still. His pale eyes were watching Mycroft intently.

“And once you make it known that you're available, they'll be queuing,” Mycroft said. “Then you could pick and choose, or you could have them all.” He swallowed. Saying it out loud was even worse than he'd thought. “But either way, you'll always be the loser.”

His fingers slid down the side of Sherlock’s face, along his jawbone, down his throat, and Mycroft could feel his brother swallow in response. “You may think you know how it works. But you don’t. This is not something that you can learn out of books, you know. Or by watching what the other boys do at school, when the lights go out in the dormitory.”

Mycroft let his hand travel down his brother’s breastbone, sneaking it under the faded t-shirt Sherlock slept in. When his fingers touched the bare skin underneath, Sherlock shivered. “And now go on.”

“No,” Sherlock replied, but all the same, the hand he was still grasping himself with started moving as if of its own accord. Mycroft hummed appreciatively, and closed his own hand around his brother’s, careful to touch only his fingers and not the burning hot skin beneath, but adding a little more pressure on every slow upward stroke.

His brother made a little sound, but whether of annoyance and protest or of anticipation, was hard to tell. It was probably both at once. “You can have this, you know,” Mycroft reassured him. “You can have this, without throwing yourself away to an idiot who’s got nothing to offer you but third-rate music and daft smiles.”

Sherlock's body tensed. The fingers of the hand that Mycroft still held down on the mattress curled in a sudden spasm, and he made the desperate little sound again.

Mycroft took care to increase both the pressure and the speed of their combined efforts further below. “I know how it works, little brother,” he whispered as the boy began to squirm under him, canting his hips in an erratic motion that could, at this point, still equally mean “more” or “less”. “There'll be all sorts of declarations, of course, and reassurances, and promises. But neither he nor anyone else will even know what they're talking about when they call you _beautiful_ , and _precious_ , and _my heart,_ and _my life.”_ He forced the words out with disdain, and accentuated each by running the tip of his thumb over the velvety soft skin that peeked out between their joined hands. He felt himself twitch in response when it was acknowledged with a moan.

“Sshhh,” Mycroft hushed his brother. “You don’t want Mummy and Dad to hear, do you?” But he didn’t relent. There was an exquisite beauty in how his little brother responded to the stimulation, fighting to regain the control he had already hopelessly lost, his eyes squeezed shut now, harsh breaths coming out through clenched teeth.

“But I can teach you,” Mycroft continued, “how to do without all those sweet little lies. You’re too good for that, Sherlock, you have no time to waste on those.” Mycroft moved his thumb in small circles, and now sweat broke out all over his brother’s body. “But you can have all _this_ , and more, with no strings attached.” He leaned down until his lips almost touched his brother’s ear, and lowered his voice to a barely audible murmur. “If you will save yourself for me.”

Sherlock gasped, and sped up the motions with his hand until they reached a frantic pace. He dug his heels into the mattress and arched his hips off the bed to thrust desperately into his and his brother’s joined hands. The sight sent a jet of fire to Mycroft’s own groin.

“You’re ready,” he said, not bothering any longer to keep his voice down. And Sherlock was, his release ripping through him the moment Mycroft told him to let it, making him tremble in every limb as he came with a long, loud groan, the sweetest surrender Mycroft had ever seen.


	2. Chapter 2

Easter was late that year, and spring was in full bloom by the time the holidays were there. The air was mild, and outside the building where Mycroft lived in London, the birds were singing in the trees. He’d left the window of the impeccably tidy bedroom open, and since it was facing south-west, it was flooded with afternoon light, reflected beautifully in the mirror doors of the wardrobe that took up one whole side of the room. There were crisp, fresh sheets on the bed, and there was nothing left to do but wait for the cab to arrive from the station.

It did, at precisely the time Mycroft had estimated it would, and only minutes later, Sherlock’s heavy school trunk was deposited in the hall of the flat, the cabbie handsomely tipped for getting it up there, and the brothers were alone. They stood facing each other for a moment, appraising each other. “You’ve grown,” Mycroft said, his eyes coming to rest on his brother’s wrists, which stuck too far out of the jacket of his school uniform.

“You’ve put on weight,” Sherlock replied, his eyes on the waistband of his brother’s fine, light grey suit.

They both allowed themselves half a smile.

“Come, then,” Mycroft said at length, and led the way to the bedroom.

They barely left it again for the rest of the day.

\+ + +

Mycroft did exactly what his parents had said he could and should do during the weekend his brother stayed with him - he initiated Sherlock into the adult world.

But they’d been thinking of museums, of course, of libraries, concerts, a tour of Mycroft’s workplace in the Home Office, lunch among Mycroft’s colleagues, anything that would broaden their younger son’s horizon beyond what their village and the school had to offer, and that might help him find his place in the world.

Mycroft was thinking of other things entirely.

There were two tickets for a concert of the Academy of Ancient Music waiting on the small table in the hall, courtesy of Mrs Holmes. But Mycroft’s own preparations for his brother’s visit had been of a much more discreet nature, and the necessary implements were currently stored in the drawer of his bedside cabinet, out of sight until the time was ripe.

Sherlock didn’t seem surprised at what awaited him.

They didn’t speak much, and there was mostly no need. Mycroft directed, and Sherlock obeyed, eyes wide open, enquiring, curious, and with just the perfect touch of insecurity in them. He didn’t seem alarmed at all when Mycroft undressed him for the first time. Standing behind him, Mycroft received Sherlock’s jacket that the boy had shrugged out of willingly. He put it aside on a chair, then started loosening the school tie that was just the wrong shade of blue to look good with Sherlock’s eyes. He put that aside on the small dressing table by the window, then started undoing the buttons of his brother’s white shirt one by one. When he slipped it off Sherlock’s bare shoulders, the boy gave a little shudder. Mycroft brought his arms around his brother’s narrow waist, and undid the buckle of his belt, then unzipped his trousers. His hands worked methodically, with almost clinical precision, neither teasingly slow nor clumsily impatient. In the same way, he slipped his right hand down his brother’s open trousers, and cupped the building bulge inside the boy’s grey pants. Mycroft pulled him back against himself and held him there for a moment, pressing his own hardness against his brother’s firm round backside. That was the first time he felt his little brother tense.

“Relax,” Mycroft muttered into his ear. “You’re doing fine.” Sherlock held his breath for a moment, then exhaled, and melted into his brother’s hold. Their bodies aligned themselves beautifully like this, front to back. Mycroft’s own erection slipped in place right along the crease between Sherlock’s cheeks, a perfect fit. It was difficult to resist the temptation to rub himself a little harder there and then, to let his little brother feel what he was capable of stirring up. But that would mean going too fast by far, and he wasn’t going to make promises that it would be foolish to fulfil too soon.

“Turn around,” he told his brother instead, and released him from his hold. The boy obeyed, and turned to face Mycroft. Mycroft smiled and put a hand flat against the cool skin of his brother’s chest. “Lie down now.”

Two steps backwards took Sherlock to the edge of the bed, and he sank down on it as instructed.

“Lie back.” Mycroft hooked his fingers into the waistband of Sherlock’s trousers. He pulled them down, and the pants with them, until the boy could kick them off, together with his socks and shoes. Then Mycroft, still fully clothed, knelt on the bed, straddling his naked brother but not touching him, and took his time just looking at him, spread out, ready and yet not ready at all.

“Mmh,” Mycroft hummed, and ran a single finger all the way down from the little dell between Sherlock’s collarbones to his navel, and from there along the fine line of hair that connected it with the boy’s groin. He stopped just short of the straining erection his brother was sporting now. Sherlock let out a little groan of frustration.

Mycroft smiled wryly. “You’ve waited since Christmas, surely you can wait just a little longer.”

Sherlock muttered something, too low to hear, but he was clearly not content.

Mycroft let his hands continue their quest, outwards across his brother’s sharp hipbones, along the sides of his torso, and down over the smooth skin of his milky-white thighs. “The human body is a strange thing, Sherlock,” he mused. “If you want to learn to control it, you have to get to know it. You have to know what exactly to expect from what kind of stimulation, or else you’ll never master its involuntary responses. It will always trick you and surprise you, if you let it.”

With slow, circular caresses, he worked his fingers between his brother’s thighs, and gently began pushing them further apart. He felt the tiniest impulse of resistance to that invasion of privacy, but then Sherlock let out a long breath, and obliged, exposing himself to his older brother’s view. Mycroft allowed himself a moment to relish the sight, then he leaned over and without warning took his brother’s desperate erection into his mouth. Sherlock’s hands flew up and twisted themselves into Mycroft’s short hair. Mycroft drew back.

“That’s what I meant. Control, Sherlock. Master your body. Don’t let it master you. Try again.” Sherlock closed his eyes and dug his hands into the bedsheets to stop them going astray again, and Mycroft rewarded him with a series of tender sucks and licks. The boy tasted exquisite, and the low moans he was making were music in Mycroft’s ears. But he didn’t hold out long. He soon began bucking his hips in that age-old, irrepressible urge to thrust. When Mycroft grasped his hips and held him down, Sherlock’s hands where there again, trying to push him away. But then it was too late already. Mycroft felt Sherlock coil like a spring and then unfold in a rush, and let go of him just in time to catch most of the effusion in a corner of the sheet.

“Sorry,” the boy muttered when he’d got his breath back.

“We’ll be working on that,” Mycroft replied evenly.

\+ + +

Sherlock reacted even more strongly to the restraints than Mycroft had expected. But Mycroft couldn't have said what was more enticing, the boys initial panic when he realised how helpless they made him, or the reinforcing effects they had once he began to accept them.

They had dinner - Mycroft insisted that they ate, and ate well, and had ordered in from an excellent French restaurant around the corner - and then they returned to the bedroom. Sherlock, already back on the bed, watched as Mycroft picked up Sherlock’s school tie from the dressing table, then removed the sash from his silk dressing gown that hung behind the door. When Mycroft turned back to him, Sherlock's eyes were wide in alarm. Mycroft smiled.

“Lie back,” he said. “Arms above your head.”

His brother didn’t speak, just exhaled sharply through his nose. But he didn’t move.

Mycroft sat down on the edge of the bed, running the two long strips of cloth through his fingers. “You don’t have to like it,” he reassured him, his voice soothingly soft. “But it will help you to focus.”

“Can’t I - “

Mycroft placed a flat hand on his brother’s naked chest again, and this time Sherlock’s skin was feverishly warm. He thought he could feel his little brother's heart beating, very fast. “Trust me.” He increased the pressure just a little. “Who else _could_ you trust, in this?”

There was the shortest moment of hesitation, but then Sherlock did lie back, acknowledging the simple truth of Mycroft’s words.

“Well done,” Mycroft commended him, and smiled again. He ran the tips of his fingers along the soft skin on the inner side of Sherlock’s right arm, stretching it out towards the solid bedpost. His brother was willing himself to keep still, but didn’t fully succeed. There was tension in his arms, in his shoulders, in his neck, and he had his head turned sideways so he wouldn’t meet Mycroft’s eyes. If they went too fast, he would struggle, and they couldn’t have that.

Mycroft leant over Sherlock until he was so close that his brother’s curls tickled his face. “Let it happen,” he cooed softly. “Just let it happen. Then you'll understand why.” Infinitely slowly, he looped the narrow end of the tie around Sherlock’s wrist and secured it with a knot, not so tight as to hurt, but tight enough so his brother wouldn’t be able to slip out on his own. He glanced at his brother's face again then. Sherlock had his eyes closed, but the tell-tale tension was still there in every fibre of his body and in every line of his face. Mycroft quickly secured the other end of the tie to the bedpost, then let his fingers travel all the way back along the outstretched arm to the shoulder, and hence along the collarbones to the left shoulder.

“You’re beautiful, Sherlock,” Mycroft whispered, and began smoothing down his brother’s left arm in the same way as before. “You’re so beautiful like this.”

Sherlock didn’t accept the bonds on his other hand quite so quietly, knowing that they would effectively immobilise him. But Mycroft had anticipated that, and he eased his little brother through that first little upsurge of panic with a constant stream of murmured encouragements, his lips so close to Sherlock’s ear that the boy could feel his warm breath. When finally, the dressing gown sash encircled Sherlock’s left wrist, and Mycroft had attached it to the other bedpost, he sat back to admire the result.

Sherlock, eyes still closed, was now spread out across the whole width of the bed, his arms in their bonds stretched out on both sides just a little above his head, his naked body fully exposed to his brother’s view and his brother’s touch, with no way of stopping whatever would happen to it. Mycroft knew better than to attribute the fact that his little brother was already almost painfully aroused again to that knowledge - at this stage, it might as well have been pure adrenaline that caused it - but it was… inviting, to say the least.

Mycroft had denied himself completion so far, but his ministrations and his brother’s responses to them had brought him very close to the edge more than once even before they had taken their dinner break. And by now, he was filling his fine wool trousers so that almost every move against the tight fabric sent sparks to his own groin. It was all Mycroft could do not to descend on his brother and take him then and there. But if he was trying to teach Sherlock lessons in patience and detachment, he’d have to set a good example.

That was the moment when Sherlock opened his eyes again, and Mycroft saw that they were slightly unfocused, their usual piercing stare glazed over. Not just adrenaline, then. Mycroft made an appreciative little noise, and bent down to take his brother into his mouth again.

Sherlock’s erection twitched perceptibly when Mycroft’s lips closed around it this time, and a moment later, it was already pulsating hotly in the warm cave of Mycroft’s mouth. Mycroft smiled to himself and swirled his tongue lazily around it, eliciting more of those twitches. They quickly turned into shudders that shook Sherlock from head to foot. As was to be expected, a moment later Sherlock started pulling at his restraints, his fingers clawing at the strips of cloth that held his arms down. They did the job beautifully. The sense of vulnerability and subjection that they conveyed only sharpened and heightened Sherlock's pleasure now. He arched off the bed, deeper into his brother’s mouth, as deep as his bonds allowed and still desperate for more. Only seconds later, with a single outcry, a wordless, mindless “Ah!” that seemed to break out of the very depths of his body, he came.

Again, Mycroft drew back just in time, and watched his brother climax in heavy, stuttering spurts. They were more intense and also lasted longer than in the afternoon, Mycroft noted. They were on a good way.

Mycroft didn’t untie his brother, not even when the aftershocks of his orgasm had subsided. Sherlock lay slack and quiet, his chest rising and falling while he was getting his breath back, his damp curls spilling out and surrounding his head on its pillow like a dark halo. He didn’t ask to get up, or clean up, or even just curl up on his side or crawl under the covers in a semblance of privacy. It was as if he knew that he wouldn’t be allowed to anyway. There was so much still to do, so much Sherlock needed to know and find out, and he needed to feel with every fibre of his body that it was not up to him to decide what, or when, or how much. So there he stayed, restrained, uncovered and exposed as before, while Mycroft began making him ready for the next step.

It would be a good opportunity now, with the boy so relaxed and satisfied. It was a bit of a risk to try it with him still tied up. But then, this _was_ a lesson in the pleasure of passivity.

“Spread your legs,” Mycroft muttered to his brother after a few minutes of silence, and reached for one of the spare pillows to push it under his brother’s hips. Sherlock, still boneless from the force of his climax, wasn’t exactly helping, but didn’t resist either as Mycroft raised his hips to rest on the pillow, and gently parted his thighs until his legs were spread almost as wide as his arms.

Mycroft knelt between his brother’s legs, then leant over to reach into the drawer of his bedside cabinet. When he returned his attention to the boy, his fingers were slick with lavender-scented oil. He ran them along the back of Sherlock’s thighs, massaging them gently for minutes on end. His little brother sighed deeply, and his eyelids fluttered closed. He loved the gentle touch, Sherlock did, he loved being taken care of. It was a double-edged sword, Mycroft knew. As long as it was _he_ who gave Sherlock the attention and the care that he needed, and as long as he was the only one, it would be fine. If not…

“You’re lovely,” Mycroft purred, working his way upwards and inwards. “You’re lovely. Nobody could resist this, nobody.” Smaller circles, smaller and smaller, until the tips of Mycroft’s oily fingers eventually began to brush against the tight pucker of muscle hidden between the firm round cheeks of Sherlock’s arse. A shudder passed over the boy.

Mycroft dipped the tip of his slick right thumb - fingernails carefully trimmed in preparation - into the opening. He felt its tightness with great satisfaction, and with even greater satisfaction he heard the little noise of discomfort that escaped his brother. So he truly had saved himself. There was no experience here, and certainly no habituation.

“Keep still,” Mycroft advised. “You’ve done so well, you’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t fine at all, he could tell that clearly. With his hands still tied, and still in the hold of his post-climactic daze, his brother’s defences were lowered to an absolute minimum, but they were not eliminated entirely just yet. Mycroft could already feel the tension returning to his body.

“I know,” Mycroft reassured him. “Your body will tell you that this isn’t right.” He continued, working his way inside, very slowly, in tiny, tiny circles. “Your body will tell you to flee or fight. Can you tell it to do the opposite?”

Sherlock tried, he tried hard, but it was still quite a struggle. Mycroft felt the ring of muscle he was penetrating with his finger clench and unclench erratically while he gently pushed further in, millimetre by millimetre. The fingers of Sherlock’s hands were clawing at his bonds again, and he was biting his lip in his effort to fight his defensive reflexes.

“Breathe,” Mycroft advised, and Sherlock let out the breath he’d been holding in a low rush. It translated to a perceptible weakening of the resistance against Mycroft’s questing finger, and he slid it in knuckle-deep. Sherlock whimpered.

“I know it hurts,” Mycroft admitted. It would be no use lying to the boy. Sherlock knew all the theory, had probably known it for years even before he’d realised how this might apply to him one day. What he didn’t know yet was how to make the pain part of the pleasure.

“Few people truly understand this,” Mycroft continued. “To most, that's all it is, pain and shame and discomfort. But in truth,” he said, and began to twist and turn his finger ever so slightly to make more room for it in its tight hot sheath, “in truth, learning to take pleasure in this is the most refined level of sublimation that you’ll be able to attain. Shall I show you?”

There was a moment of silence. “Yes,” his brother whispered then.

“Tomorrow,” Mycroft promised with a smile, and carefully withdrew his finger again. “Sleep, now.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise so much for the delay. I got mightily distracted by a certain murderous bride. I hope this makes up for the wait. Thank you to everyone who's stuck with this story so far!

Mycroft awoke just before dawn. The bedroom was in darkness, the body next to him on the bed no more than a vague outline. His brother was lying on his side, facing away from him, and Mycroft could see his ribcage rise and fall gently with every breath. The sheets had pooled around his narrow waist, covering the lower part of his slim body.

Very carefully, Mycroft reached across and slowly pushed the thin fabric further down. His little brother shifted and murmured something unintelligible, but then settled back into deep sleep. Mycroft smiled.

Half an arm's length separated them, and Mycroft took great care not to close the distance between them. It would be so easy, to just wriggle a little closer, slip an arm around Sherlock's waist and pull him close. In his sleep-addled state, all reflexes dulled, all reactions slowed, even the grip of his fingers slack and feeble, he would be like putty in Mycroft's hands.

Maybe he wouldn't even awaken fully before Mycroft was already halfway inside him. He would slip in there effortlessly, his little brother's warm body willing to receive him as a matter of course. There was no relaxant like sleep. They would barely need anything fresh to ease the way. The slight sheen of sweat in the crease between the boy’s cheeks and last night's residue of oil would be enough.

It would not be the pain, but only the strange, new feeling of being filled up with someone else's presence that would wake him at last. He would struggle back to consciousness, maybe a little alarmed at first at what his own body had cheated him into accepting while his mind was still far away. But then he would melt into his older brother's arms, opening around him like a flower, and Mycroft would pull him closer still, chest to back and hip to hip, and then he'd start moving inside him in slow, rolling motions, back and forth, back and forth in a mesmerising rhythm, as if to rock him back to sleep.

It would be like swimming together in a crystal-blue sea, their bodies, floating weightlessly, perfectly in tune, moulded together more closely with every move until Mycroft would be buried to the hilt. His little brother would tilt his head back and sigh then, and be perfectly still for a moment to feel, just feel, what it was like to be claimed and owned like that, what it was like to be the pure vessel of someone else’s pleasure.

Mycroft would kiss him then, for the first time ever, tenderly licking and sucking at those plush lips. They, too, would open to receive him. The pace would pick up a little then. Sherlock's breaths would come more quickly, and more harshly. A little adjustment of their position, a little change of angle, would do the trick, and a moment later, the sweetest of moans would break from Sherlock’s moist lips as Mycroft reached that secret little spot deep inside him that had lain dormant until now, waiting to be kissed awake by the most intimate connection that two bodies were capable of. And awaken it did, to the sound of rhythmic cries of pure lust, louder and louder as the boy gave himself entirely over to this new and shocking degree of delight. Mycroft could feel him clench down on the shaft that penetrated him to his very soul, once, twice, three times -

\- and then Mycroft came hard into his own hand, biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut in his effort to keep quiet, while his little brother, on the other side of the bed, slept on in virginal oblivion.

\+ + +

When Mycroft came back from the shower an hour later, already dressed, Sherlock was awake. His cheeks were sleepy-pink, his hair was tousled, but his eyes were bright with expectation.

“It’s tomorrow now, isn’t it?” he asked, making no move to get up.

“It is,” Mycroft confirmed, and opened the curtains to let in more light. “There’ll be breakfast in a moment, and then I’ll have to put in an appearance at work. You can go out and do something you can actually tell Mummy and Dad when you get home. We’ll meet again for lunch.”

He turned away to head for the kitchen before Sherlock could open his mouth to protest. It was a pity, but the delay was necessary. It would tell him more than he’d ever learn from seeing and hearing and feeling the boy writhe under him in bed.

Sherlock did not disappoint him. He spent the first half of the morning looking at odd things in jars in the Natural History Museum, and the second half strolling along the river. He went along with careless ease, with no apparent purpose or destination, but he was drinking in the sounds and smells and sights of the big city in wide-eyed fascination. Mycroft had taken care to place no restrictions on him where he might go and what he might do. He had even furnished him with enough money to pay for a train ticket straight back home to their parents’. But Sherlock’s didn’t run away. At one o’clock sharp, he was outside the door of the Japanese restaurant near St. James’s Park that Mycroft had chosen for lunch. Mycroft had his answer.

They stopped in Savile Row on the way back home. Sherlock scoffed, but Mycroft insisted that he was not taking his little brother to the Wigmore Hall that night in his school uniform. When they returned to Mycroft’s place, Mycroft sent him to the bathroom for a shower. “You know what to pay particular attention to, don’t you?” he said, handing Sherlock a pair of fresh towels from the airing cupboard. The boy merely nodded, and disappeared down the hall.

Mycroft went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee, then retired to the bedroom. When Sherlock came back, his curly hair damp and wearing nothing but the larger towel Mycroft had given him around his waist, Mycroft had already taken off his own suit jacket and tie, put fresh sheets on the bed, and removed the straps of cloth from the day before from the bedposts. The time for lounging around and being attended to was over. The boy had work to do.

And work it was, hard work. It took Sherlock almost half an hour to get just the first finger in, and he was in tears by the time it was buried inside him to the third knuckle. It had taken a constant stream of muttered encouragement, and half a bottle of lubricant. But he was trembling with the strain of it, and showed no sign of relaxing and adjusting to the unnatural stretch any time soon.

“It makes you wonder, doesn't it,” Mycroft mused, running his hand idly through his brother's sweaty hair, “why anyone would want this.” He paused to wipe away a tear with the back of his hand. Sherlock almost angrily turned his head away. “And the answer is, nobody does. Or rather, nobody wants this for themselves. You won't want it for yourself, either. You'll want it only for the other. It's the best gift you have to give.”

Mycroft reached down between his brother's legs, generously coated the middle finger with the excess lube that had run down the boy's thighs, and guided it to his entrance. Sherlock responded with a hissed obscenity when it was breached again, and stretched even wider.

“All around the world,” Mycroft said while Sherlock's second finger was slowly disappearing into the tight channel, “in every age, and every culture, subjecting oneself to rectal penetration has always been considered the most perfect manifestation of submission there is. And perfect is what you are right now.”

He leaned over, and brushed his lips against his brother's in a feathery light touch. It was a perverse contrast to the pain and the burning stretch that Sherlock would be feeling further below, and the boy felt it as such. His lips parted willingly, desperate for a tenderness to counter-balance the merciless violation he was inflicting on himself. Mycroft dipped his tongue into Sherlock's mouth and ran its tip along the inside of his lips. The boy shuddered. A series of little, circular licks to the sensitive corner of his mouth, and Sherlock responded with a sigh that originated somewhere deep in his naked chest, making it rise and fall in a slow, beautiful rhythm. His eyes had fluttered closed, and at long last, Mycroft felt some of the tension ebb away. When he pressed his tongue deeper into his brother's mouth, Sherlock received it almost hungrily. He even made a little noise of protest when Mycroft withdrew it to lick a long stripe along the sharp edge of Sherlock's jawbone, and from there to the side of his throat, pausing at the pulse point for a gentle suck and lick, and then on downwards until he could swirl it around the boy's nipples. Sherlock moaned. Attending to them with his mouth on one and a thumb and forefinger on the other, Mycroft's free hand travelled further down, over pale, hairless skin, until he stopped, an inch away from his brother's crotch.

“That makes a difference, doesn't it?” he said, momentarily releasing the nipple he'd worked into a small hard pebble by now. He was stating the obvious; the distraction had work beautifully. Sherlock made no more attempts to pull his fingers out again, as he instinctively had, more than once, at the start of this session. “Now, if you want a reward, earn it. Move your fingers. In and out.”

He placed a hand against the back of Sherlock's, and guided the boy's fingers as he started moving them. He was less tight now, and they slid back and forth in their sheath with less effort than before, halfway out and then in again. With gentle pressure, Mycroft made sure they went a little deeper with every thrust. Mycroft could hear Sherlock's breathing speed up, sharp, quick breaths through his nose. He easily caught Sherlock’s other hand that was sneaking towards his crotch, and locked it down on the mattress above the boy’s head. Sherlock let out a little whimper of frustration.

Sherlock made a move to raise his hips, arching his groin towards Mycroft's hand. Impaled on his own fingers, it was only a tentative, small gesture, but it was an unmistakeable plea.

“Interesting, isn't it, what it makes you want to do,” Mycroft said, holding the boy firmly in place. “A moment ago, it was just two fingers where they didn’t belong. What's it become now?”

There was no answer, and he expected none. No verbal answer at any rate; the physical manifestation that the boy was crossing the threshold from pain to pleasure now was perfectly obvious. Mycroft could watch the erection build as his brother continued to work himself open. With both of his own hands needed to keep Sherlock compliant and going, he bent down and helped it along the way with his mouth. He didn't take Sherlock fully in, but instead licked a broad stripe along the underside, all the way up to the tip, then swirled his tongue around the tip, shaping it. Only then did he close his lips around the head, and sucked it gently. Sherlock swore, and this time he did buck his hips, his heels digging into the mattress. Mycroft sucked him in deeper, inch by inch, in the same rhythm that Sherlock was pleasuring himself with on his fingers. He could almost feel the blood rushing down as Sherlock's member swelled to rock-hardness, and predictably, it was over all too soon.

Sherlock lay panting on the bed for a good while afterwards, his legs still trembling from the strain of propping them up for so long. Mycroft gently massaged the blood back into the hand and wrist that still ached from being in such a constrained posture between his legs for over an hour.

“I thought you'd - “ the boy began after a moment, then broke off again. Their eyes met, Sherlock begging Mycroft silently to read his request in them, rather than having to say it aloud.

“Oh, not yet. Tonight, maybe. ”

“I thought we were going to a concert?”

Mycroft smiled. “We are.”


	4. Chapter 4

After an early dinner, they dressed. Dressing Sherlock in a _proper_ suit was almost as much of a pleasure as the reverse process, Mycroft thought when he tied the silk tie, silver and purple, for his brother. He looked gorgeous, almost as good as he did without any clothes on at all. He felt less than comfortable, though, and Mycroft knew why. There was nothing wrong with the suit, but the underwear Mycroft had chosen for his brother had elicited the first outright protest that Mycroft had heard from him since Sherlock's arrival at his place.

“Why?” Sherlock had asked, making no move to take the pair of black lace knickers that Mycroft held out to him.

“Why not?”

“Odd.”

“Wear them for me,” Mycroft had said, and brushed his lips tenderly across his brother’s. He didn’t know why yet, but he soon would.

\+ + +

They entered the busy foyer of the concert hall with a quarter of an hour still to go. Mycroft immediately turned aside into a small passage that led to the gents. Inside, he held open one of the cubicle doors.

“Why?” Sherlock asked for the second time that night, his eyes narrowing.

That really shouldn't become a habit. “Just one or two little things,” Mycroft said, an edge of impatience in his voice. “Now get inside.”

There was barely room in the narrow space for both of them, and certainly none to turn. But that wasn't be necessary at any rate. Mycroft, who had stepped in there after Sherlock, locked the door. Then he opened and unzipped his brother’s trousers from behind, and let the fine fabric pool around his ankles. He hesitated for a moment before he did the same with the lacy knickers.

“They’re pretty, you know,” he said, running a tip of his finger along their lower edge, where they met his little brother’s milky white skin.

“Itchy,” Sherlock muttered.

“Never mind that. Now brace your hands against the walls on either side of you.”

Sherlock shot his brother a suspicious look over his shoulder, but then obeyed, standing with his hands flat against the side walls of the cubicle for support, waiting.

“Good boy.” Mycroft reached into his pocket for what he had brought away from his well-stocked bedside drawer. Sherlock certainly heard both the little bottle open and some of its contents squirt onto Mycroft’s palm, but all the same, he gasped when he felt his cheeks parted, and the dull pressure against his entrance.

“Easy,” Mycroft murmured. “You can do it, you know you can. You did so well, this afternoon. Open up, now.”

Sherlock canted his hips for a more comfortable position and took a deep breath, steeling himself for the intrusion. Mycroft felt him squirm when he broke through the initial resistance. Sherlock made no sound while Mycroft pressed the toy into him inch by inch, but his fingers were soon scrabbling against the smooth white walls of the cubicle, desperate for a hold. He was on tip-toe with tension. The thing was of a crueller size than Sherlock's own fingers, and the pace Mycroft was setting was less than considerate. But then, if there were no new challenges, there'd be no progress.

“You’re great,” Mycroft encouraged him, keeping up the constant pressure with one hand while putting the other on the boy’s hip to steady him. “Not everyone could do this standing up, you know.”

There was no response. Sherlock had his head down and his eyes shut, and was drawing deep, steadying breaths through his nose. But it did little to help him relax. He had broken into a sweat. Mycroft saw it on his face, but he could also feel it down there between his cheeks, mingling with the lubricant that coated the inside of the boy's thighs.

“It’s not even as thick as the real thing” Mycroft reassured him, and let his hand wander from Sherlock’s hip around to his groin. He lowered his voice to whisper in his brother’s ear. “But you’re going to love it.” Somewhat surprised to find his brother stirring already in response, Mycroft closed his fingers around the burgeoning erection, and hummed appreciatively. He held the boy close for the last inch or so, until the toy was inserted as deep as it would go. Its flat base would allow Sherlock to sit. “Well done.”

Sherlock exhaled a trembling gust of breath, and raised his head. He was just about to lower his aching arms when Mycroft stopped him.

“Just a moment.” He dug into his pocket again. Sherlock gasped in surprise when he felt his brother’s hand slip the ring on. It brushed teasingly all along his already half-hard length, then settled into place at the base, fitting not too tightly to be uncomfortable just yet, but snugly enough.

Mycroft nodded with satisfaction. “Don’t want to ruin your fine new suit, do we? Now clean yourself up, and put your clothes back on properly. It would be very bad manners to be late.”

There were two difficult moments to negotiate.

The first was when they reached their places in the concert hall. Mycroft had chosen inconspicuous seats in one of the back rows, close to the side aisle. He took his, and left the one that directly adjoined the aisle to his brother, patting the plush red velvet of the upholstery invitingly with his hand.

Sherlock pulled a face, but he had no choice. The muscles of his face twitched slightly when he sat down, and he shifted a bit to find a comfortable position. But other than that, nothing gave away the sweet little secret that was hidden inside him. Mycroft approved.

He’d purchased a brochure with the concert programme, and he now handed it to his brother.

“Don’t need one,” Sherlock shrugged.

“You will,” Mycroft smiled. “Trust me.”

He was proved right when the second difficult moment came. The orchestra was well away into the overture, and the hall was filled with the elating splendour of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, when Mycroft flipped the switch on the small remote control in his jacket pocket. Then he settled back to watch his brother’s eyes grow so wide that they almost popped out of his head.

They didn’t even make it to the interval.

Sherlock fought it valiantly for minutes on end, closing his eyes in the attempt to focus on the music instead, his brow furrowed in concentration. But in the middle of the second movement, he began to cave in under the constant sensory onslaught. The programme brochure that he had put on his lap hid the visual proof of what was going on inside him, and the response the toy elicited; and the music conveniently covered its low hum so that nobody else in the packed hall noticed it. But he was soon fidgeting restlessly, his hands opening and closing in a fruitless attempt at releasing tension. Mycroft, smiling, responded by increasing the dose.

Sherlock began to twitch in his seat, tilting his hips this way and that to alleviate the pressure. Mycroft could tell that the new trousers were getting tighter and tighter, and the lacy front of the knickers his brother wore underneath would add even more friction to his already overstimulated groin. The boy kept his lips pressed tightly shut, but sweat had broken out on his forehead again, and his face was suffused with a deep flush. The better he adjusted to the discomfort of the toy stretching him painfully wide, the more susceptible did he become to the pleasurable effect of its vibrations. They reached the point where the second sensation started to outweigh the first sooner than Mycroft had expected. When Sherlock began to tremble all over, Mycroft put a steadying hand on his brother’s knee. It jerked violently in response.

Mycroft’s hand crept under the programme brochure to test how far they might still go without risking exposure. The answering moan from his brother was not encouraging, and neither was the rock-hard bulge he could feel under the fine wool and the delicate lace, straining against the ring that reined it in. He would come apart there and then, if they didn't make it out in time.

“Please,” Sherlock begged in a whisper, trying desperately to move away from Mycroft’s questing hand. The programme brochure tumbled to the floor. The lady in the seat in front of them turned around in irritation. Mycroft smiled at her apologetically, then turned the little switch in his pocket to “off” and got to his feet, nudging his brother to do the same.

\+ + +

“Thank you, a cab will do,” Mycroft assured the attendant who came hurrying towards them across the empty foyer with a concerned look on his face to ask whether they required assistance. Sherlock was certainly looking rather feverish.

The tube would have been kinder, since it wouldn’t have meant sitting down again. But it would take much longer, and every minute counted now. So a cab it was.

The cab ride did little to calm Sherlock down, even though the toy inside him was mute and quiet for the time being. Only when the cab turned into Mycroft’s street did he flip the switch to “on” again. By the time they were inside the building, Sherlock was reeling. He was so weak at the knees that he almost went down on their way to the bedroom. They stumbled inside, Sherlock first and Mycroft behind him. Mycroft bodily heaved his little brother up onto the bed, face down, then ripped down Sherlock’s fine woollen trousers and the black knickers in one move. The lacy front caught on Sherlock’s painfully hard erection, and he let out a sob of protest. The moment it sprang free, his hands flew down to grasp it. Mycroft, anticipating the move, caught both his wrists in an iron grasp and pulled them away. Deprived of the use of his hands, Sherlock fell forward, burying his face in the pillows.

“Like this,” Mycroft hissed into Sherlock’s ear, leaning over him. “Like this, or not at all.” He considered loosening his own tie to secure Sherlock’s hands behind his back with it, to make sure, but there was no time.

“Get it out,” the boy groaned, spreading his legs as far as he could to minimise the pressure, his arse raised in helpless supplication, his back arching in an obscene curve. He was panting and twitching, his whole body drenched in sweat, teetering on the brink of collapse from overstimulation either way, no matter whether he got his release soon or not.

“Oh, on the contrary.” Mycroft leaned in and ran his tongue all the way down the boy’s crease to the base of the vibrating toy. He nudged it experimentally. It was long, but it hadn't been long enough for the crowning glory while Sherlock was still sitting down. In this position, however, the angle would be perfect. Mycroft used his tongue to press it another half-inch deeper - and struck gold.

Sherlock screamed. It was a wordless cry, desperate with raw need, and it also marked the end.

Mycroft saw his brother’s release rip through him with irresistible force. It shook the boy from head to foot. Tugging at the hands that held him, he spurted rhythmically into the sheets, in spite of the ring that still encircled him, on and on and on, untouched by either his or his brother’s hands.

\+ + +


	5. Chapter 5

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Mycroft mused, trailing his fingers lazily through the soft curls at the nape of his little brother’s neck. “It’s just a bit of silicone and electronics against your nerve endings, and yet it can make you lose your mind.” He wound a strand of hair around his forefinger, then unwound it again slowly. “Stimulation and response. The basic principle that all human behaviour is built on. We’re slaves to it, Sherlock, all of us. You see that now, don’t you?”

There was no reply. Mycroft let his fingers ghost down his brother's neck, and along his spine. The shirt and tie were long gone, as were all of Mycroft’s own clothes. “Refuse to call a problem by its proper name, and all attempts to solve it are futile. You can learn control, and you can learn detachment. But to deny the mechanism as such would be a foolish illusion.” Mycroft’s fingers reached the little dell in his brother’s lower back, just above the crease, and turned to the right to trace a sharp hipbone. The boy was lying on his side, facing away from his older brother. Mycroft reached around him to where the constraining ring had been, and closed his hand around the pliable softness he found there now. “If the urge is there, there is no point in denying it. What I want you to learn is how to channel it.” He massaged the velvety skin gently with his hand, and smiled indulgently when he felt the first little answering twitch. The boy’s refractory period really was impressive, even for his age.

Stimulation and response. It really was that simple when you craved attention and affection as much as his little brother did. Well, it was time to drive the message home. Without letting go of the boy, Mycroft leaned over him to whisper in his ear. “Back on your hands and knees, now.”

For the first time since Sherlock had come to stay with him, but not unexpectedly, Mycroft encountered protest.

“No.” It was the first word Sherlock had spoken since he’d come apart with the humming toy still inside him, almost half an hour earlier. The thing was gone now, but it had left him slack and open and more inviting than ever.

Mycroft tightened his hold on his brother tantalisingly. “Why not?”

“I'm sore,” Sherlock muttered.

“No, you're ready. You've never been readier.”

“I don’t want - “

“Oh, but of course you do,” Mycroft corrected him gently, feeling the treacherous evidence of it stiffen in his hand even as he spoke. “You can be a little frightened, that’s alright. You’re allowed to cry, too, if it hurts more than you like. But now, turn over.”

He nudged Sherlock over on the mattress until he was positioned as Mycroft had instructed him, braced on his hands and knees. The hand between his legs stayed where it was, anchoring him.

“Spread your legs and raise your hips.”

A heartbeat, a deep breath - and then Sherlock did. The sight of his little brother offering himself up to him even against his will made Mycroft ache with desire.

“And now let me hear the truth,” Mycroft encouraged his brother, placing the palms of both hands over the firm, smooth cheeks presented to him, his thumbs tracing small, reassuring circles on the warm skin. “Tell me what you _really_ want.”

“I - I want - “ It was beautiful how his little brother struggled with the simple words. He was blushing like a maiden, and kept his head down to hide it.

“Go on. Ask me for it.”

The boy made a move as if he was shaking his head, but it might as well have been an involuntary shudder that passed over his slender body.

“I - I want it,” he forced out after a moment. His voice was low, and it shook with the shame of begging for his own violation. Mycroft felt himself twitch in response. “But - “

“Ssh. No but.”

Mycroft pressed a soft kiss onto his brother’s naked back, then reached across to the bedside table. He retrieved the lubricant from it and prepared himself, and then, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, he finally allowed himself to indulge in the privilege of deflowering his little brother.

A privilege it was, no doubt. Though well prepared by both his own fingers and the toy, the boy was still exquisitely tight, his not yet fully grown body pushed to its very limits by accommodating his older brother in it. Mycroft went slowly, savouring every inch of the penetration, every spasm and every clench of the ring of muscle around him as he pressed his way inside, pausing now and again to give his brother time to adjust to the stretch.

He could feel Sherlock struggle to subdue his body’s instincts, resisting the urge to run and hide, or to fight back. There were no props and aids this time, no restraints to keep him in place and his hands off himself, no ring to hold back his release until Mycroft allowed him to give in to it, no rigid cold tube of silicone to keep him open. It was up to him now to master himself, to prove that he could control the reflexes and responses that governed ordinary mortals, and that he had learned to transcend the limits and restrictions, both mental and physical, that nature imposed on the rest of humanity.

And he did it. He did it admirably. There were tears running down his face by the time Mycroft was buried inside him to the hilt, of course there were, but there was never a sob, never a whimper, never a plea to stop or to go more slowly. His hands had curled into claws, clutching the bedsheets, and the tension in his back and in his legs was palpable, but he was forcing himself to keep still, helplessly impaled on his brother’s pulsing erection, head down and breathing hard but meek as a lamb. The beauty of it was breathtaking.

Mycroft slid a hand around his brother’s waist and placed it flat on his stomach. “Can you feel that?” he whispered. “Can you feel how I’m filling you?” He increased the pressure of his hand a little, and there it was, the unnatural rigidity that was him, deep inside. Sherlock did whimper then, but it was only half in protest, and he squirmed under Mycroft’s hand. The sudden move translated into a clench that made Mycroft sigh with delight.

“That’s all you’ll ever need,” Mycroft muttered. “You’re _complete_ , Sherlock. This is what you were made for.”

He canted his hips ever so slightly to test his range of movement within that tight hot channel, and found that it was time for the next stage. He began by giving the boy a slow rhythm, firm and steady, a little out and then deeply in again. Sherlock’s hands scrabbled along the mattress for a better hold.

“Don’t fight it,” Mycroft advised him, and it worked. Sherlock seemed to realise that he’d have to keep up; that remaining stock-still would only increase his discomfort. His hips came up a little more, and his back dipped in an instinctive response to adjust to the increased pressure. Soon they fell into it quite naturally, Mycroft rocking into his little brother and Sherlock doing his best to push back against him in beautiful unison. It was true that Sherlock was made for this; it was even more true that they were made for each other.

Sherlock’s erection had flagged perceptively while Mycroft entered him, a natural reaction to the shock and the pain of the invasion. Now it was reviving with almost touching speed, jumping readily into Mycroft’s hand when he felt for it, and growing steadily and obediently back to its former proportions as Mycroft cupped it and ran his hand up and down its hot, pulsating length.

Mycroft increased their pace, and bit back a moan of his own as the friction he felt every time he thrust into his brother progressed from delightful but still bearable to intolerably enticing. On and on, a little harder, a little deeper each time, and Sherlock’s breaths were soon coming in those familiar, unmistakable loud gasps again. He was getting close, given over entirely now to his older brother’s pleasure, making himself the sweetest gift Mycroft would ever receive.

Enticing became irresistible. Rocking became rutting, and they went out of sync when Sherlock couldn't keep up any longer. It didn’t matter - his part was to take now, nothing else, and he took it beautifully.

Without letting go of the boy’s straining erection, Mycroft placed his other hand on his shoulder, and abruptly pulled the writhing body backwards for better leverage. Sherlock threw his head back and whined in protest at the sudden rough handling, but only a split second later, he felt what the change of angle had accomplished. Mycroft smiled, taking care to brush against that deeply hidden sweet spot he’d just rediscovered every time he thrust in again. Sherlock began to tremble under him, eyes closed in rapturous delight. He’d begun to moan again, too, acknowledging each of his brother’s thrusts with loud, wordless gratitude.

Mycroft locked his forearm across his brother’s heaving chest and pulled him upright until they were chest to back, Sherlock’s thighs straddling Mycroft’s lap, spread obscenely wide for unrestricted access. Mycroft, careful not to dislodge himself even for a moment, heaved them both over sideways until they were facing the large mirror doors of his wardrobe.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered into his brother’s ear. “Look at you. _Look at you.”_ It was almost too much even for Mycroft himself to see the two of them in the mirror like that, fused together as if into one being, their arms and legs intertwining, their heaving bodies glistening with sweat, Mycroft pumping into his brother at breakneck speed and Sherlock reduced to abandoning his body to the unrelenting stimulation, hips snapping forward with every thrust, hair wild, moist lips parted to let out the audible evidence of his ecstasy.

“ _Look_ ,” Mycroft hissed again, reinforcing the order with a particularly forceful thrust, and Sherlock’s eyes popped open. They refocussed just in time for him to see himself climax. In the mirror, they were wide and glassy with arousal, and they were fixed in helpless fascination on the image of his older brother’s hand encircling his throbbing erection. Mycroft, over his shoulder, both saw and felt the deep inner muscles in his brother’s lower body contract, a series of small shudders driving him the last part of the way, until he unfurled in a glorious release just as Mycroft’s hips began to stutter and finally lost their rhythm, too. With an almost undignified groan, Mycroft let go and allowed himself to fill the boy to the brim, wave upon wave upon wave.

\+ + +

Mycroft lay awake for a long time afterwards, looking up at the ceiling in the now darkened room. Sherlock had gratefully accepted the glass of water Mycroft had brought him, but he’d fallen asleep before Mycroft returned from the bathroom with the necessary equipment to clean them both up.

Mycroft couldn’t sleep. He felt physically sated and content, but his mind was not at rest. There had been no escaping from this responsibility, even if he'd wanted to. Nobody else could have done this. Nobody else _should_ have done this. But had he done it right?

Just then, Sherlock turned over on the bed, coming to rest on his back, still deep asleep. Mycroft decided to put it to the test. He propped himself up on his elbow, and ran a hand along the inside of his brother’s milky white thighs, until his fingertips disappeared in the gap between them. He could feel the sticky wetness there, his own gift leaking back out of the boy now that he was utterly relaxed.

Mycroft probed ever so slightly deeper with his forefinger, and as if on cue, Sherlock’s legs fell open willingly, even though his eyes were still closed and his breathing even and quiet. Mycroft leaned over him, and touched the tip of his tongue to the head of the Sherlock’s member, nestling pink and soft between his legs now. He ran it across the slit, tasting the residue of the release he had given him earlier that night, and at that, Sherlock’s arms came up. With a soft moan, he spread them wide, towards the bedposts on either side of his head, already conditioned to ask for the restraints that he had fought against so desperately only a day before. Mycroft swallowed at the sight.

Sherlock only woke when Mycroft slid his hands under the boy's knees and lifted up his legs to hook them over his own shoulders. And even then, all he did was smile and wriggle a little to get more comfortable. He came on Mycroft’s fingers only a few minutes later, rolling his hips in lazy, almost sluggish, sleepy slow-motion. There was barely more than a trickle left by now, but the happy, satisfied sigh that rewarded his older brother’s efforts confirmed Mycroft’s worst suspicions.

They had not solved the problem, Mycroft thought as he watched the boy slip straight back into the arms of Morpheus, with his older brother’s fingers still inside him. They had merely replaced it with another. Mycroft had looked to inoculate his little brother against all this, against every variant of it, against the common human error that glorified a short moment of purely physical gratification into a matter of earth-shattering significance. But he had failed at his task. And what was worse, he had not only failed, he had achieved the diametric opposite of what he had intended.

He had got Sherlock addicted.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I know that some of you would have liked this rather dubious idyll to continue forever - be warned that things will take a decided turn for the worse in this final chapter. 
> 
> Please also heed the additional tags, everyone - this chapter comes with an extra warning for references to drug abuse, references to prostitution, and references to sexual violence.

As addictions went, this one proved surprisingly manageable for a surprisingly long time.

Sherlock had always, from the start, had a keen instinctive understanding of the need for secrecy. He knew that the fact that he was underage necessitated utter discretion, and he knew that the fact that they were brothers would continue to necessitate it even long after his eighteenth birthday. There had never been any need to impress on him how important it was that nobody, _nobody_ , ever even so much as suspected what turn their relationship had taken. They had always, even as children, been good at following their own agenda and keeping everyone else, first and foremost their parents, out of whatever they were doing. But now they both became true masters in the art of deception.

Even before they had become bedfellows, their relationship had never been one of equals. Their age difference had laid the groundwork for that, as had Mycroft’s superior mental abilities. It was nothing new that they clashed, as their own mother would be the first to attest. So nobody suspected anything when they now bickered and fought and sniped at each other on purpose more often than not, using their conflicts both as a veil and as a catalyst, to both hide and reinforce the release they found when they were in bed together.

There was also another aspect to it, and it became more and more important as Mycroft progressed through the ranks of his country's secret protectors. For a man in the kind of position he aspired to, any relationship - no matter how socially acceptable and morally impeccable - was a potential threat, a potential pressure point, a potential cause for blackmail and coercion, both from hostile foreign powers and internal political enemies. It was a risk he could simply not have taken. _Unless_ it was with the only person on earth whom he could trust to be clever enough to keep their secret under wraps at all cost, and whom he could rely on to never turn it against him.

So for years, it was a useful as well as a pleasurable arrangement, keeping Sherlock out of any other man’s bed and influence, and granting Mycroft the fulfilment of what would have had to remain a dream otherwise. And as far as Mycroft was concerned, it could have gone on forever.

Deep in his heart, however, he knew that circumstances might change, and that adjustments would have to be made. So when Sherlock turned eighteen, mere months away from finishing school and enrolling at university, everybody else congratulated him on his impending new freedom. Mycroft, however, knew it was time to tighten the reins.

Late that night in the dark and quiet of Sherlock’s boyhood bedroom in their parents’ house, he buckled two pairs of black leather cuffs around his little brother’s slender wrists and ankles. And then he proceeded to make sure the boy understood that he was never to take them off again, even when they weren’t hooked to the posts of a bed they shared, or joined together behind his back and around Mycroft’s hips respectively whenever the bed they were in didn’t happen to be quite so conveniently constructed. He wasn’t asking for anything absurd - they would send a very clear signal to anyone who saw them and happened to be similarly inclined; all the others would just think them a fashion statement.

Sherlock shuddered and panted that night, spread-eagled on his narrow bed on top of his brother, facing upwards, the cuffs pinning his hands and feet down on the mattress while his spine arched in an enticingly painful curve to accommodate the solid bulk of his brother’s body under him. They immobilised him almost completely in this position, reducing him to the purest and most beautiful receptacle for his brother’s pleasure that ever was or would be.

“Never take them off,” Mycroft muttered into his brother’s ear as he filled the well-prepared, slick hole between his firm round cheeks from behind with his best birthday present. Sherlock, his unseeing eyes on the ceiling above him, dutifully repeated the words in a broken gasp, his hips bucking upwards with every of Mycroft’s firm thrusts, the - deliberately neglected - evidence of his own arousal pointing skywards until Mycroft’s hands took pity on it.

“Never – never - _never_ \- ” He came with the word still on his lips, sealing his promise.

\+ + +

When Sherlock turned twenty, he broke it.

University, everybody agreed, was doing him a world of good. The college he’d been admitted to was one of the more liberal ones, ready to make room for talented young people who would have been dismissed as oddballs or even as social misfits anywhere else. Sherlock took to his life there like a duck to water. Mycroft, from afar, watched with concern.

Sherlock wasn’t interested in the social aspects of being a student, of course; he vastly preferred the quiet of the chemistry lab to the noise and the bustle of the packed junior common room on a Saturday night. But he immersed himself in academic pursuits like he had rarely done before, with a sense of purpose and direction that had been unheard of in his school days, when his studies had been erratic at best. The weeks during term were no longer an interminable stretch of time to be got over as quickly as possible before they could meet up again. Sherlock obviously didn’t live only for those days any more, as he had done during the previous few years.

When the Trinity term of his second year ended, he even announced to Mycroft and his parents that he was staying in Oxford for the summer to start working on his PhD. Their mother managed to wheedle the promise out of him to come and visit for her birthday in early September at least. Mycroft had no choice but to declare himself content with that, although inwardly, the rejection stung.

Mycroft learned the true reason for it only at the very end of that summer, when they met again for their mother’s birthday.

The last of the guests could still be heard laughing and chattering downstairs when they had retired. They left the bedside lamp on, and it made Sherlock’s naked skin glow like pale gold as he lay stretched out on his bed, resting his head comfortably on his forearms. For the first time ever, he had got a bit of a tan over the summer.

Mycroft, trailing his fingers across his brother’s back, could see him in his mind’s eye, in a rowing boat sporting his college’s coat of arms, afloat on a river sparkling with sunshine, the jerseys he’d be wearing during their training sessions leaving his arms and his legs almost bare. It was a pleasant enough mental image. Taking up that sport a couple of months ago had toned the muscles of his arms, chest and shoulders perceptively, too, Mycroft noticed as he ran his hands over them, relishing the smooth ripple under his fingers.

“Get on with it,” his brother snarled at him, trying to shrug the hands off.

This was a new phenomenon, too, that their constant public bickering carried over into their secret encounters. But so far, Mycroft had been inclined to humour Sherlock on that account. It had done no harm – if anything, it had helped them to keep up the façade.

“Not so hasty, brother dear. I’ve been looking forward to this all summer.” Mycroft let his fingers continue their quest, reading his brother’s body by touch like a blind man would read a book, cataloguing the changes, all the small fragments that combined in the realisation that this no longer was a boy at all, but a man fully grown. It was also the moment Mycroft realised that he _had_ been blind.

“Despite my best efforts, you still don’t know the meaning of the word patience, do you?” Mycroft mocked, running his hands down his brother’s flanks until they came to rest on his hips. “Alright. Up.”

Sherlock sighed – this had never been his favourite position - but he did as he was told, knowing that Mycroft loved to have him on his hands and knees both for the effortless access it offered, and for the submissiveness of the pose. He propped himself up, exposing himself to full view. He was already glistening with lubricant, thanks to their largest plug having stretched him open all the way through their mother’s birthday dinner, five courses of pure culinary delight for every guest present and of exquisite torture for Sherlock in particular. Mycroft really could not have told what had been the greater source of enjoyment, the excellent meal or the sight of his brother on the other side of the table, keeping up appearances with an almost nonchalant, practised ease. Oh yes, Sherlock knew how to smile and lie when he had something to hide. Mycroft of all people should have known it. He felt his hackles rise, and it was grist to the mill of his arousal.

Sherlock’s erection had diminished once the toy had come out, but Mycroft had it up and going again as soon as he, kneeling behind his brother, began replacing the object with his own hard and leaking length.

“You really don’t care what you’ve got inside you, don’t you?” he teased his brother in a deliberately innocent tone when he had breached the slick hole with a single deep thrust. Sherlock was tighter than he had any right to be, after that amount of preparation, and responded only with a harsh indrawn breath. Mycroft smiled grimly, knowing for certain now that he’d read the signs aright. He tightened his hold on his brother’s hips and pressed himself deeper. Perversely, the knowledge of what had happened - of what may have been happening for weeks, if not months - didn’t sour the physical enjoyment of the act itself at all. On the contrary, the edge of punishment that it now had to it was a new thrill.

“As long as it’s hard and thick, it could be anything, couldn’t it?” Mycroft continued, advancing with relentless pressure against palpable resistance now. Sherlock gasped, struggling to adjust to the unexpected force and pace of the penetration, but didn’t reply.

“Anything, or anyone for that matter,” Mycroft concluded, putting the cards on the table just as he buried himself in his brother to the root.

Powers of dissimulation or no, here was where they ended. He felt Sherlock clench around him at his words, a sudden spasm that rocked his whole body.

“No,” Mycroft forestalled any attempt at either fight or flight, keeping them connected with a firm grasp on his brother's hips. “I have questions, you know. You might as well answer them here and now. I’ll _feel_ it when you lie.” He canted his own hips tantalisingly to emphasise his words.

Sherlock froze, unsure how to respond. Then, unwisely, decided to make a fight of it after all.

There had never been a need before to revert to crude forms of discipline – Mycroft had always preferred more persuasive and more subtle ways of bending his little brother to his will – but maybe it had been waiting to happen all along. So it was with regret but without compunction that Mycroft caught the arms that were trying to push him away, and twisted them behind Sherlock's back. He quickly connected the hook and ring of the leather cuffs his brother was wearing - that he was wearing _again_ now, after they must have been off almost all summer, for the skin under them to tan so seamlessly with the rest of his arms and legs.

Sherlock snarled in ineffective rage when he found his hands locked behind his back, depriving him of the necessary leverage to fight his brother off. Mycroft snorted disdainfully and hooked his hands around Sherlock’s thighs to keep them conveniently spread, his fingers digging into the tense muscles hard enough to bruise. He rode him hard then, with deep, rough, punishing thrusts that made Sherlock’s eyes water and had him gulping for air.

“You didn’t seriously think you’d manage to sneak that past me, did you?” Mycroft panted, his hitherto carefully contained rage finally boiling up to the surface and breaking through. He felt for Sherlock’s twitching erection, which was still there even though it had no reason to be. Without diminishing his thrusts from behind, he started jerking his brother to the brink of completion with rough and indifferent strokes. “Now _tell_ me about him,” he ordered.

Sherlock, trapped from both sides, writhed and hissed in protest, almost torn in two by the humiliation of his body saying yes when his head said no. But he didn’t reply.

“Go on. What’s his name?” Mycroft emphasised the question with a vicious snap of his hips, and Sherlock let out a high pitched whine through gritted teeth. “What does he feel like?” More sharp thrusts. The angle was perfect. “Like _this_? Or _better_?” Mycroft grabbed a handful of hair at the back of his brother’s head and pulled it backwards. The resulting painful wince was satisfying. “ _Tell_ me,” Mycroft hissed, rutting into the tight heat that engulfed him still faster and faster, but Sherlock won that particular little battle, for all it was worth.

There was silence for the next few minutes, except for the frantic slapping of skin against skin and the rustle of the bedclothes and both their harsh breaths, until Mycroft came, driven as much by his fury as by physical need.

As soon as he had spent himself inside his brother, he pulled out abruptly, dribbling the last of his release messily down Sherlock’s cleft.

He had never left his little brother hard and wanting after using him for his pleasure, but this time he did.

Sherlock made one attempt to speak, raising his head off the mattress and saying his brother’s name in a strangely small, pleading voice. But Mycroft only said “No,” and pushed Sherlock face back down into the pillows. Sherlock didn’t try again.

\+ + +

By the time the sun rose, Mycroft was already back at his desk in London, and by lunchtime he had obtained access to the college’s CCTV footage of the past week. He started his research at the most likely location, and struck gold almost immediately.

The last training session of the rowing team had taken place on the Tuesday before, on a warm and sunny evening. The camera that pointed at the double doors of the boathouse to ward off theft and vandalism also provided a view of the benches outside it. As was probably their routine, the eight young men had settled down on them afterwards, passing each other cans of beer and sandwiches from a cool box. That was, seven of them did. The eighth was sitting a little apart, on the grassy bench of the river, overlooking the water. He was only just on screen, his back turned to the camera, but he was unmistakeable. A moment later, one of the other students got up from his place and walked over to him, a can in his hand. He touched the sitting man on the shoulder with it, a casual enough gesture, but when Mycroft saw his little brother turn to accept it, he had his answer. The resolution was not good, but even without zooming in on the grainy black and white image, the smile Sherlock gave the other man was radiant enough to light up the entire screen.

Not just a provocation then, not just pushing the boundaries and testing his range. It was obviously something much worse. This came, as people so stubbornly kept mis-assigning the issue, from the heart; and that meant that all Mycroft’s efforts had been in vain.

And that was unthinkable.

\+ + +

Finding out the details was almost insultingly simple - the rowing gear the team wore had everyone’s family name blazoned across the back, after all. Finding the adequate response took a bit more effort, but it was no real problem, either.

Less than three days after Mrs Holmes’ birthday that the Hampshire Constabulary in Southampton received an anonymous tip-off that they couldn’t ignore. They got the files back out, and a week later, with a little help from HM Revenue & Customs, they had their hands on all the evidence they needed.

It proved conclusively that twenty-five years ago, the death of one Mr Higgs, the senior partner of a very successful local building company, Trevor & Higgs Ltd., had not been the result of a tragic yachting accident after all, but cold-blooded murder; and that the only person with a sufficient motive was Mr Higgs’ business partner, who had been secretly draining the company of money to use in illicit speculations that Mr Higgs would never have approved of.

Among an uproar of public indignation that quickly spread from Hampshire into the national news, Victor Trevor senior was arrested. His wife suffered a heart attack in consequence, and their son was forced to leave Oxford to look after his remaining family.

By November of that year, the murder trial was in full swing, and by Christmas, it was clear that the Trevor family was completely ruined. Between the legal costs, the demands for reparation, and the inevitable bankruptcy of Trevor & Higgs, there was no money left to pay for young Victor’s tuition fees. He dropped out of university for good, moved to his mother’s native Northern Island with her, took on a job as an insurance salesman to help her make ends meet, and he and Sherlock never met again.

Mycroft slept more soundly from then on.

\+ + +

Sherlock didn't speak to his brother for over a year. Not during the family's Christmas dinner, which was the first time they couldn’t avoid seeing each other since September; and not even later that night, when their parents were long asleep in their bed. Mycroft had his brother across the armrest of one of the sofas in the sitting room then, his trousers around his ankles, a hand clamped over his panting mouth, his hips bumping painfully into the furniture with each of his older brother's fierce thrusts. He bit down so hard on Mycroft's fingers when he came that Mycroft had to muffle a howl of agony, but that was all that could have been heard from either of them at this or any of their following encounters.

There were not many, as the years went on. The progress of Mycroft’s career came with an ever-increasing repertoire of techniques to help him keep an eye on his wayward little brother, so he was never far away; but there was nothing on earth that could truly bring Sherlock back.

Sherlock, in turn, took a perverse pleasure in undermining the efforts to keep him tethered in whatever clever way he could contrive. He liked to dive down into those parts of their city where no sun ever reached, nor any CCTV camera. He came up spluttering and gasping for breath more often than not, always looking much the worse for wear, but usually with a sickeningly triumphant grin on his now habitually gaunt, hollow-eyed face. On the rare occasions when they still came face to face and skin to skin, he didn’t bother trying to hide the needle marks on his arms.

He had nothing but disdain for his brother whenever they met in person. He berated him for being a sentimental fool every time Mycroft came to pick him up in some dingy back alley after yet another drug-induced system crash. He mocked him mercilessly, even that one time when he'd woken up in hospital, and been told in no uncertain terms by the doctors that nobody had expected him to. He did his worst to push his brother away, but it did no good. So in the end, when Sherlock turned twenty-five, he tried to run.

He managed six days, which was longer than he had ever slipped under Mycroft’s radar before. Mycroft, both furious and humiliated at how the surveillance systems at his disposal had collectively failed him in the one task that mattered most in his life, had found himself reduced to having all the relevant police reports and all the lists from London’s A&E departments delivered to him personally, so he could scan them for his brother’s name, or any person whose description resembled him. He sweated. After forty-eight sleepless hours, he acknowledged that this was getting him nowhere. So he did something unheard of, and went searching all the possible places in person. And at the end of another day, he found his brother.

Mycroft had been to that dilapidated little house in Deptford, close to the river, twice in vain already, but when he returned for the third time, Sherlock was there. Climbed in through the skylight, probably, to avoid the cameras. He was lying diagonally across a filthy old mattress that had been thrown on the floor at the far end of a small room, face down, his bare feet hanging over the edge. He still had his sleeve rolled up and a tourniquet tied around his bare upper arm. His messy, overgrown hair hid his face.

He didn’t move when Mycroft approached, stepping carefully over the debris of broken needles, spoons and lighters that littered the bare concrete floor. But he was breathing, if shallowly, and when Mycroft bent down and peeled back a drooping eyelid, there was a clear reaction to the sudden influx of light in the form of a muffled groan.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft whispered. There was no reply.

Mycroft let his gaze travel over his brother’s prone body. In the dim light, he saw that Sherlock’s dirty jeans were unzipped, hanging low on his hips and exposing the pale skin of his lower back where the sweat-soaked shirt had ridden up. Mycroft took off his leather gloves and squatted down. He put his warm hand on the small of his brother’s back, and when that, too, failed to elicit a response, he moved it further down, slipping it inside his brother’s jeans and in between his thin legs.

Sherlock was wet down there, wet and sticky, filled to overflowing by the men whom he’d let ride him bareback because it paid so much better, and maybe by whoever else may have passed by and taken advantage later, when Sherlock was already past caring or even noticing. A probing finger showed that he was still slack and open, worryingly so. And although Mycroft could feel no actual physical resistance, his brother winced in protest against the touch, and let out a sorry little whimper. The sound was like a cold fist closing around Mycroft's heart. When he withdrew his finger, it was smeared with both filth and blood.

Mycroft sighed, wiped his hand clean on a tissue, and got out his phone to call an ambulance.

There were four men, according to the CCTV footage from the camera in the street outside the house, who had openly entered and left it again after Sherlock had made his own way there that day. The first three - the paying customers, presumably - were arrested within a week on whatever charge could plausibly be thrown at them and stick, and kept in custody long enough to teach them their lesson. The fourth - a penniless drug addict himself, obviously the one who had just helped himself when the opportunity offered - was judged past redemption. His body was found floating in the Thames on the morning of day eight.

But all of that did little to ease Mycroft’s pain.

\+ + +

When Sherlock turned thirty, it was over.

It had been over for a long time, ever since that day when Mycroft had found him in the house in Deptford. He’d never so much as touched his little brother again after that, not even casually. But neither of them had ever spelled it out.

Now it would be, Mycroft knew it the moment the door to his office flew open and hit the wall with a bang, early in the morning of the last day of January, 2010. His brother stood on the threshold, like a dark, windswept avenging angel in his ridiculous long coat, his face like a thundercloud, Anthea at his shoulder. She had obviously tried but failed to keep him out or at least announce him properly. She grimaced apologetically.

Mycroft waved her away, and regarded his brother over his folded hands until the door closed behind her.

“What is it, brother dear?” he asked then, feigning surprise.

“This,” Sherlock hissed through clenched teeth, not fooled for a moment. He dug his gloved hand into his coat pocket, and took out an object that was so small that his fingers hid it entirely until he brought his hand crashing down on the smooth surface of Mycroft’s desk. There was a crunch as of plastic and glass breaking, and when Sherlock withdrew his hand, there was the ruin of a small electronic device on the desk, casing splintered, wires dangling, lense broken. A miniature surveillance camera.

Mycroft met his brother’s eyes. “Yes?” he asked in a voice of forced calm.

“It’s over, Mycroft. _You_ are over. Get out of my life, now.”

Mycroft forced a disdainful smile. “Oh, I see. A knight in shining armour has arrived at last, to rescue the maiden from the dragon’s captivity. Too bad. Remember how she used to enjoy herself with the dragon? What’s new now? What’s this one got that none of us others - ”

He broke off, regretting the words as soon as they were spoken. They smacked of petty resentment and of jealousy, which was not and had never been the whole truth.

“I don’t know what you were hoping for in your sick mind, Mycroft,” Sherlock spat, jerking his head at the broken camera. “But there is nothing to see, and there never will be. _You_ made sure of that a long time ago. You’ve killed that, once and for all. I hope you’re proud.”

Mycroft leant back in his chair with a sigh. “I wanted to protect you, Sherlock,” he said after a long pause.

“And who protected me from you?”

There was a heavy silence while the two brothers stared at each other. Mycroft was the first to stir.

“Sherlock,” he said quietly, “I just want you to think carefully before you commit yourself to something you barely have a name for. Let alone a plan, or an exit strategy. You don’t want to - “

“No,” his younger brother cut across him sharply. “ _You_ don’t want it. Twenty-four hours, Mycroft, and you’ve already tried to take him away from me. He wouldn’t let you. But I know you won’t give up so easily.” Again, he nodded at the broken camera. “I know how you do these things, we’ve been there before, remember? There’s enough in any man’s life to destroy him, if you only look long enough and closely enough. But it’s not happening this time, Mycroft, not this time.”

Pale eyes flashing with white-hot fury, Sherlock braced himself on the desk with both hands, and leaned across it until their faces were barely a foot apart. Mycroft could feel the heat of Sherlock’s rage on the skin of his own face, and he had to make an effort not to flinch from it. Sherlock sank his deep voice almost to a whisper.

“Because if you touch _him_ , brother dear,” he said, his voice colder than Mycroft had ever heard it before, “I will _kill_ you. I swear it, I will kill you with my own hands.”

And without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room, banging the door shut behind him so forcefully that it rattled on its hinges.

It was painful beyond bearing, but at long last Mycroft, bowing his head into his hands, acknowledged that sometimes victory tasted bitterer than defeat.

 

THE END


End file.
